Thursday, April 30, 2015

Happy
Face: The Good
News is that the US economy didn't quite grind to a halt in 1Q2015;
it grew (if that's the word) 0.2%. That's down a tad from the 2.2%
annualized GDP growth rate at the end of 2014. Bet they blame it on
the weather; it was winter. What they won't talk much about is the
$121.9 billion increase in inventories, the
largest inventory build in history, without which we're in
negative territory. They're
Everywhere:
It's not just in America, the
ten richest Africans own as much as the poorest half of the
continent's population. First
Things: The
people of Baltimore (and lots of other places, big and small) are
frustrated and desperate. Their frustrations and desperation are
based in the great and growing disparity between the rich and the
rest. All of us should pay attention, else we will pay a great deal
more.

Gag
Me: Those who
want to profit from privatizing public schools claim that the
Baltimore riots could have been prevented by more charter schools.
Details to follow.

Whitish
Lies: Seems
that the Germans spied on the French and on EU officials for the US,
and lied to their parliament over performing
economic espionage for the NSA. Interesting, that bit about the
NSA engaging in economic espionage. Makes you wonder who their
customers are.

Asked
And Answered: A
reporter asked Senator Feinstein why she believed the CIA would lie
to her about torturing detainees but not about drone stikes. After a
pause she said,
“That’s a good question, actually.” Diagnosis:
Representative Bill Flores (R-TX) has identified the root cause of
the riots in Baltimore. No,it is not poverty, not inequality, not
police brutality, it's “because of too many gay marriages.”

Wednesday, April 29, 2015

Padding:
US corporations spent $1 trillion last year buying back their own
stock because they can't find anything worth doing with the money,
like investing in the business or developing new lines. And much of
the trillion wasn't “returning profits” to the shareholders - it
was borrowed (as a tax dodge). Why? Mainly because the remaining
shares (and the option shares and bonus shares yet to come) owned by
senior management become far more valuable as the buybacks drive up
the price of the company's stock.
U.S. businesses made $1.8 trillion in after-tax profits last year
alone. To date they have over $2.1 trillion in overseas profits
stashed offshore. Pretty
obviously they don't really need quite all they take in.

Simple:“Is
TPP trade deal a massive giveaway to major corporations?" Yes. Clarification:Obama
was
correct in claiming that the TPP agreement “has been on file in
Congress for weeks.” Correct, but misleading. The draft is in a
locked room, where members of Congress can make an appointment to
view the document. View only. No notes, no copies. And
the public isn't to know what's in the treaty until after it is
signed.Travel
Advisory:
Before you check in, bear in mind that Motel
6 sends
a list of their guests to the police, every day. Just like Europe
under the Nazis.

Leadership:
Republican Lamar Smith (TX), head of the House Science Committee and
devout know-nothing, kicked the Democrats out of the committee room
and marked up a bill that would reshape federal scientific research
programs by cutting social sciences research dramatically,
straitjacket the NSF's
latitude in funding research projects, curtail climate change
research and bar the government from using any DOE research findings
when writing energy regulations. It would also cut funding for DOE
renewable energy programs by more than half. This is all for the
good, Smith claims, because “legislators can do a better job than
the scientific community itself in identifying the most promising
research areas.”

Faint
Praise:“The
Obama administration considers the real alternatives to drone strikes
to be the unpalatable options of grueling ground wars or passive
acceptance of terrorism. Then it congratulates itself for picking the
wise, ethical and responsible choice of killing people without
knowing who they are.” Just
Concern:
The TPP and its Trans-Atlantic twin will impose a settlement
proceedure known as ISDS – which stands for Investor-state
dispute
Settlement
and
is a process by which a three member panel chosen by international
corporations judges
disputes between member firms and various levels of government
and awards
monetary settlements to the corporations for lost profits.
Technically it is possible that an occasional dispute might be
settled in the citizen/taxpayer's
favor, but this has yet to happen.

Never
On Sunday:
Surveys show that Americans do not go to church any more often than
those godless Europeans – they just pretend they do.

Higher
Education:
In Alabama at least 9 high school football coaches make over
$100,000 a year, with one making over $125,000. In Texas and Georgia
some coaches make “a lot more” than that. These guys do not
teach any academic subject, they just train gladiators.

Tuesday, April 28, 2015

The
Mysterious Yeast:
A chunk of land 50 feet high, 10 feet wide and about a thousand feet
long rose out of the sea next to the island of Hokkaido, Japan. A
scramble for development rights is underway. Contact your broker.

Bland
Date: The
F-35's troubles just keep on coming. Or not. This time it's the
plane's engine, which as been found to be unreliable. This is not as
bad as it sounds, because the plane can't fire its guns and its bomb
bay doors are too small
for its weaponry.
What it does have is a manufacturing or development contract in every
state and in at least 75% of congressional districts. Try to whomp
that gopher.

Business
Plan:Rather
than go through the trouble of identifying and developing new
medicines, big pharma
finds it easier to buy
competing companies or rival drugs and then jack up the prices in a
less competitive market.

Once
Over: In FL a deputy sheriff
stopped a black man on a bike and shoots him within 4 seconds. In NJ
the police have admitted that an 18 year-old was shot
in the back . Two SC cops may actually go to jail for repeatedly
tasering a woman in handcuff who
posed no threat to anyone. There
probably has not been an increase in police brutality or stupidity –
it's
not a sign of the collapse of society or anything - but we're
getting a lot better at reporting it.Asked
& Answered:
Robert Reich asks why so many Americans feel so powerless. Because
we are. It's by design – ask the man with the kill switch on our
communications systems.

Third
One's Not A Charm, Either:
The ultra-secret Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the also secret
Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP, thought to be
even worse than the first), joined with the Trade
in Services Agreement will complete the destruction of the
experiment in self-rule that has been America and seal the fate of
most Americans to ever lower wages and deteriorating
living standards. They are not about “free trade”; they
are not even about trade as we understand the term. They are
aimed, the three of them, at increasing the power and control of
international corporations over the the laws and regulations that
we-the-people may have or may want to have enacted to protect our
homes, our environment, our health and our safety. Freedom's been
gone so long it no longer matters, but what little is left they want
to take for “the
certain and inevitable enrichment of the few and the further
reduction in worker's already low wages.”
In
secret, no matter
what Obama says. One
Slice Fits All:
“If taxes didn't
exist, Republicans would have to invent them so they could say that
cutting them would solve our problems.” All
of them. “There are
only two problems with this: it's not true in theory, and it's not
true in practice.”

Overlap:
Polls show that about half of Americans favor legalizing same-sex
marriage and about 50% are in favor of legalizing marijuana. For
extra credit, what percentage of the former are part of the latter?

Limits
of Power:
Reports say that Obama, the out
of control dictator,
wants to transfer control of drone operations from the CIA to the
Pentagon. Why can't he just tell 'em to do it? They both work for
him, or used to.

Arcade
Fire: A
federal court has ruled that standing in Texas and killing folks in
Mexico is not a crime. Kids, earn your NRA Border Patrol badge!

Reality
Check: The
government is considering dropping its ban on letting private parties
pay ransom for hostages held overseas, as
long as they pay the government a 25% surcharge.
Corporations have long been allowed to do whatever they want. No
Exit: The Fed
may lay to rest any fears you may have about the effect ending QE
will have on the economy by never ending its large-scale purchases of
assets. Wall Street said “Good doggie” and tossed them a bone.

Monday, April 27, 2015

“We
fear the arrival of immigrants that we have drawn here with the
wealth we stole from them.” Patrick
Boyle

We
Get What They Pay For:
Years of starving various government agencies'
ability to inspect, regulate, and meaningfully enforce health and
safety standards has led
to things like the current Blue Bell listeria outbreak. Except it is
'current' only in the sense that it had
been going on for five years and was only shut down by the company
only
for
fear of lawsuits, not by any government food safety process. What
He Said:
“We
are
turning into an economy that 'needs'
bubbles to achieve anything like full employment.” Fortress
Europe:The
head of Europe's border patrol agency says that saving migrants'
lives is not to be a priority mission for Mediterranean patrols, say
it “cannot be a search-and-rescue operation.” Presumably bodies
floating in major shipping lanes will be disposed of. Passive
Aggressive:
Eight suburban Kansas City highschool boys have been suspended for
receiving nude pictures of some of their female classmates. For
receiving? Report
Card:
A thorough search by the FBI of the data provided by the NSA's
warrantless surveillance and bulk data collection program during
its first five years failed to identify a single instance in which
the information was useful to any investigation. The report also
noted that review of John Yoo's legal brief justifying the program
was, to put it mildly, “flawed.”

Busman's
Holiday:
A group of vacationing Swedish police officers broke up a vicious
assault that took place on a NYC subway. Just part of the New York
experience.

American
Sniper II:
They shot the Buffalo herd; all fifteen
of
them. The herd "escaped" from a
farm in Rensselaer county, swam across the Hudson, made it across the
New
York
State
thruway, wandered
through
some
neighborhoods
and were eventually trapped in a small gully. A
group of snipers were brought in and shot them all. The
snipers lined up, and
the bang bang bang of
the guns
and the whump, whump of heavy bodies falling and hooves trying to
escape – was
broadcast live.

In
God We Trust:
The administration insists the President must have the legal
authority
to have – and use – a “cellphone kill switch” to keep the
citizenry from using their smartphones to coordinate protests.

On
The Home Front:
There is a
scary new assault on personal freedom afoot of late, centered on
abolishing paper money. Joining various
economists and opinion makers, Chase has begun field testing the
cashless banking society in Cleveland. There it will no longer
accept cash in payment for credit card debts, mortgages and auto
loans, and will not permit customers to store cash in safe deposit
boxes. With little or no cash, the banks and the government (where
they are meaningfully different) will know of and control your everytransaction. Sure, you have nothing to hide unless your are a
criminal, right? Just like the rest
of the surveillance, it
isn't an inconvenience if you're not up to no good, right? Funny, my
paper script still says “This note is legal tender
for all debts, public and private.” And it doesn't even have a
footnote exempting
Chase,
yet.

The
Deep:
Below Yellowstone
is a huge magma chamber, and beneath that is another – newly
discovered – chamber 4.5 times larger. There's enough magma down
there to fill the Grand Canyon 14 times over, when it erupts. But it
only does the gigantic nuclear-winter-for-a-decade type eruption
every
700,000 years. The last major eruption was 640,000 years ago and
there is no sign that it is going to erupt anytime soon. Of course
there's no sign it's not going to, either.

Takes
One To Know One:
Senator McCain is urging that US drones be transferred from CIA to
Pentagon control, arguing that the military is far more experienced
at killing non-combatants.

Location,
Location, Relocation:
Beginning this fall, the Carroll County, GA, school system will
subject most
of the student body of its five high schools to random drug testing.
No probable cause needed. Time to put the house up for sale.

Saturday, April 25, 2015

Just
Asking:
What did QE do if it didn't increase production and employment (and
it didn't)? It increased the effective money supply (money is no
longer the printed stuff, but computer blips) and that increase went
into driving up asset prices, both equities and commodities, and
driving bond prices down (which theoretically was going to cause an
investment boom, but didn't). Now if we stop QE, push up interest
rates and get the Fed out of the bad loan repository business, won't
that – absent a “recovery”, which is really absent – cause
even less production, less employment, a decrease in the money supply
and thus higher interest rates and a dive
in the prices of stocks and commodities along with a nasty bump
in interest rates and – oh, yeah – another economic collapse? Silence
Friction: China is building a series of giant floating battle stations in
the South China Sea, to accompany its new international bank.

Classification: The US drone program, which has killed a few thousand innocents
at various weddings and funerals and other social events, is in a lot
of trouble because it killed a single American civilian. Fact is, at
best the US simply thinks – thinks! - that there may be a bad guy
or two among the casualties. The rest are collateral damage, much
like what has happened to our reputation.

Big
Boned:
Repeated studies have shown that excess quantities of sugar and
carbohydrates are the prime culprits in the global obesity epidemic –
not physical inactivity and not sedentary lifestyles. Cheap carbs
and high fructose corn syrup are the culprits, and the food
manufacturers and purveyors know this and, like the tobacco companies
before them, put profits above the health of their customers. First
Do No Harm:
The World Bank, in spreading prosperity among the world's bankers,
dictators, tyrants and corporate giants, has displaced 3.4 million
people in the last decade, nearly all of them poor and
disenfranchised.Bargain:
In
the first quarter of this year, US airlines have saved $3.4 billion
on jet fuel and have passed 66 cents in savings on to the typical
passenger. Coordination:
Government scientists have confirmed that much of the surge in
earthquake activity across the US has been caused by fracking –
specifically by the disposal of the fracking waste water. Even
Oklahoma has swallowed
the bitter pill and acknowledged the obvious.
But the same day they did, the state passed a law prohibiting cities
and counties from doing anything to regulate the fracking industry. Noted: 61% of Americans support allowing gays to marry, just not in
their churches nor to their daughters. Easy
Crumb, Easy Go:
In the petty cash department, the Pentagon can’t account for $1
billion in cash given to various military commanders as part of the
Afghan victory. That's a very minor part of the cash distributed to
Afghan leaders – Karzai and Klan – and hardly noticeable
in the $1.6
trillion so far and $6 trillion overall that this Great
Adventure will eventualy
drain from the US taxpayer.

The
Crime of Being Young:
Sometime in the last 30 years or so, being a normal child has become
a disorder requiring pharmaceuticals and restraints. How did this
happen? How did childhood become a crime?

Friday, April 24, 2015

Occam's
Razor:
“Facts not in evidence” covers most of the utterances of the GOP
wannabes.

Tax
Broke:
Louisiana State University says it is planning to seek bankruptcy
protection because Gov. Jindal's [Republican] budget has cut state
funding from $3,500 per student to $660 per student. Bobby says the
cuts were necessary to spur Louisiana on in it's race to the bottom.

Observed:.
Bankers have impunity, teachers do not. For example, Deutsche Bank
will pay a $2.5 billion fine for
rigging interest rates on trillions of dollars in mortgages. No
one goes to jail, while millions went to the poorhouse. No one paid
back their bonuses, either. But cheating on a test in Atlanta put
folks in the slammer. Prospectus:Saxo
Bank's Chief Economist Steen Jakobsen, speaking for us all, says “"We
have zero growth, zero inflation and zero hope." The
List:
Michael Bennet of
Colorado. Maria Cantwell of Washington State, Ben Cardin of
Maryland,
Tom Carper of
Delaware, Bill Nelson of Florida, Mark
Warner of
Virginia, and Ron Wyden of Oregon. Traitors all.

Need:The
IMF says
that the net effect of “multilateral liberalization” (for which
read globalization of greed) has increased consumption in the
effected economies by as much as 0.014%. That's 43 cents a month per
person in the US. While the same “expanded trade” has cost
the average US worker about $150 a month. Sounds like a good
deal; bring on the TPP.

Thursday, April 23, 2015

Speculation:
Danish
lawmakers voted
91 to 75 to outlaw
sex with animals. I
assume it was a secret ballot.

Investment
Alert:
Scientists say we must leave at least 75% of the world's known
fossil fuel reserves in the ground, or fry, that we must reduce our
fossil fuel use to
zero in the next 35 years.Zero
means no coal or gas fired electrical generation. Zero means no
gasoline or deisel based cars and trucks. Zero means sailing ships –
no containerized behemoths. Think it's gonna happen? In the next 35
years? Voluntarily? A tough choice, but my money's on fry. Optimists:Pundits
now are worried that privacy “could be a meaningless concept in 10
years.” Or less, much less. It's so yesterday.

End
of Several Eras:
The idea of the university, and with it the concept of a liberal
eductation, cannot survive the insults of globalization. Master
Class:House
and Senate Republicans are
offering to let the public watch them, working with a net from the
rich, slash programs for the poor and moderate income households by
40 percent – stuff like food stamps, college loans and so on. They
will not attempt the more difficult task of cutting the $1 trillion
in annual tax breaks for the top 20%. This is on top of their brave
abolishment of the
hated death tax
estate tax that the richest 5,500 families face. Sure that's another
$20 billion a year you and yours will have to come up with, but it's
worth it to support the ultra rich in the manner they insist on.
Remember, if you're not leaving more than $5.5 million to the kids,
you don't pay federal estate taxes.

You
Want Fired With That?
Popeye's has fired a shift manager because she would not (and most
likely could not) pay back the money an armed robber got away with
while she was in charge. Boycotting is a good idea, wonder why I
didn't think of that...

Memories:
The Dogwood Debutante Ball in Knoxville, TN is open to young women
who are college sophomores, unmarried, and white. Thought
Experiment:
Given our Constitution guarantees of freedom of speech, can I say
“Killing all the Jews would please God”? Could I put up a sign
on my front lawn with that message? Can I pay the local transit
company its going rate and plaster my sign on buses and in subway
cars? Why not?

Wednesday, April 22, 2015

Directed
Democracy: The
oversimplification that is inherent in California's system of making
laws via popular vote has backfired again; a court has ruled that
Proposition 218, which prohibits a government agency from charging
more for a product or service that it costs to provide means that the
state cannot use a tiered approach to water usage fees.Once again it turns
out one size doesn't fit all.

Rights
of Passage:
The US Navy appears intent on intercepting an Iranian convoy on the
high seas... under what authority?

Sticks
And Stones:Quicken, the largest
FHA mortgage lender ($140 billion in 2013/4) says that the
government's probe into alleged fraudulent practices (which involved
more than 85,000 documents) is simply a pretext and the government
is trying to bully them in to admitting extensive wrongdoing.
Quicken says the sample was too small and they government hasn't
proved enough fraud so far.

Group
Punishment:
Over 5 million Iowa chickens are likely to be executed because a few
of them have contracted bird flu.

Nothing
Runs, Like A Deere:
You don't own that John Deere tractor you bought. Their lawyers say
you have bought only
the right to use it,
“an implied license for the life of the vehicle to operate the
vehicle”, while the
company controls what you do with it and what other equipment you can
hook up to it. And you are not allowed to peek at – much less
modify – the software that runs the damned thing. GM has the same
theory about that car of theirs that is sitting in your driveway.

Fine
Tuning:
Corporations now spend more lobbying Congress than taxpayers do. And
they get what they pay for. Hypocrisy
Rules:Europeans, upset that
so many would-be immigrants are drowning in the attempt to cross the
Mediterranean, plan on launching military strikes aimed at the
smugglers because rescuing the desperate costs too much. As
Simple As Possible:
Once again a massive study has shown that there is no link between
MMR vaccination and autism. There never has been.

Runes:
A major
Chinese real estate developer has defaulted on its dollar-denominated
bonds. Major miner Rio Tinto reports a big drop
in iron ore shipments, mainly due to a drop in Chinese demand.
Containerized
freight rates for the China-US and China-Europe routes has fallen
to all time lows. The governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia
notes that “extraordinary world conditions could
spark an abrupt sell-off.”Distrust
And Verify: TN
state representative Sheila Butt (R, natch) killed an amendment to an
abortion prohibition bill that proposed an exception for rape and
incest because, she claims, such claims are “not verifiable.”
Neither is her claim. Endgame:
US troops have begun training Ukrainian troops to fight pro-Russian
forces. Just what is the optimum outcome of this exercise?

Wilder
West: The
Texas House of
Representatives, not
satisfied with their status as a running joke, has now passed a bill
that will allow NRA members to wander down the middle of Main Street
with a six-gun strapped to their Levi 501's. Say
“May I”:A
JPMorgan Chase investment adviser has
been arrested for
stealing $20 million from customers and losing it in the markets.
Hard to tell if the crime was stealing the money or losing it.

Oddsly:
Republican
Lindsey Graham says he is “91% certain” he will run for
president. I am 99.4%
sure he is full of...

Tuesday, April 21, 2015

Just because things happen
in slow motion doesn't mean they don't happen.

Skepticism:
When
you read “Six
Minnesota men charged with conspiring to support the Islamic State “
didn't you immediately
suspect the FBI planned the whole thing? All
six of the 'terrorists'
had been conspiring
(most likely with an
agent provocateur) for
months. Details on how
the brave agents of the FBI set up this batch of stooges were not
imediately available. Piggy
Banking:Greece
is so low on cash to pay off the German bankers that the state has
ordered
local governments to turn in all of their funds to the the central
government. This is generally the one of the last steps before the
whole thing goes down the drain.

Truth:
The Washington Post has informed all and sundry that the elite
(which in this case includes the Washington Post) will lie, cheat and
steal to pass the TPP – which is not about trade bugt about
installing international corporations as the supreme rulers of the
universe, able to leap local, state and national laws and to extract
tax monies without ever bothering with a ballot box. Biology
Rules:
Iowa Republicans have killed a bill that would have terminated the
parental rights of convicted rapists because the
state should not stand in the way of a man's god-given right to rape
his kids
it was simply “feel-good” legislation. Just
Wondering: If
possession (and presumably use) of small amounts of marijuana is
legal in your state, can an employer deny you a job if you test
positive?

Sunk
Costs: “Greece
would have been better off exiting the euro in 2010. You can make an
even better case that Greece would have been much better off if it
had never joined in the first place.” But
they did, and here they are.

Solid
As A Rocker:
The Federal Reserve seems set to rule that the biggest Wall Street
banks can count S&H
Green Stamps
some municipal bonds as
part of the ready cash they must have to tide themselves (and their
depositors) through a
financial-market meltdown.

The
Untouchable:
AIPAC's Netanyahu has been given an additional two weeks (on top of
the Constitutional 28 days) to find patsies to join him in forming a
new government for Israel – most of the other parties don't want
anything to do with him. He'd be better off asking Congressional
Republicans to move to Tel Aviv. The
Heartland:
When the mostly black good citizens of Parma, MO elected a black woman
as mayor, most of the (white) police officers resigned, along with
the city attorneyand the guy that ran the water plant. Dog pound operations were not
immediately affected. Or afflicted. Unexpected
Consequences:A San Antonio, TX woman, facing a $2,000 find for feeding the
homeless, has invoked the state's religious freedom rules, arguing
that it is exactly what her Christian religion tells her she must do.
The District Attorney and State Representatives are expected to
argue that the statue, and the Bible, do not cover the homeless or
the hungry. Not in Texas.

One
Down: Goldman
Sachs director and convicted felon has lost his attempt to get the
Supreme Court to kiss and make his two year sentence for insider
trading go away. Too bad he – and a whole lot of his Wall Street
buddies – wasn't imprisioned for crimes against humanity.

Editing:A
Detroit police officer has been charged after videos surfaced of him
beating the crap out of a suspect in custody. “To
many people in this region and across this country … police
brutality seems to be out of control,” Wayne County Prosecutor Kym
Worthy said. Seems?

Monday, April 20, 2015

An
Offer They Can't Refuse:
International corporations have told Congress that they must let
Obama unilaterally select partner countries for a trade pact,
determine an agreement’s contents through the negotiations, sign
and commit the US to the pact before Congress gets to read the
treaty. Once dictated, signed and in force, Congress has 90 days in
which to say “okay”, but can only say “okay” – no
additions, deletions nor amendments permitted . Or else. Along with
giving corporations the right to override nearly any law - local
state or national - that stood in the way of even a penny in profits.
Zoning, the environment, health and safety, and
free speech would all have to bow to Mammon.

Modesty:
President Obama says that the
fastest growing markets are in Asia and, thus the
US not only must have the Trans-Pacific
Partnership, but must
also
dictate
the terms for the global economy and not leave things up to an
upstart Chinese bank
the Chinese Investment Bank AIIB. Assumes
Facts Not In Evidence:
“Why would consumers spend less as the economy picks up steam?”

Brownback
Mountain: In
2012, Kansas, under Republican Governor Sam Brownback, adopted a
“pro-growth tax policy” endorsed by Art Laffer of the Laffable
Curve Theory, that was promised to act “like
a shot of adrenaline into the heart of the Kansas economy.” Well,
he was right about the shot to the heart part, but not the
adrenaline. Corporate and individual taxes were cut by about a
billion dollars a year and the sate now ranks as the third worst
economic performer in the nation. Take
a Memo: US
troops from the 173rd Airborn Division have arrived in Ukraine for
public
relations
training exercises.

Paper
Chase:
Michigan has sold 9,000 acres of land on the Upper Peninsula to a
Canadian firm that wants to mine it for limestone, never mind that
the land falls within
the 11,000 acres the 1836 Treaty of Washington, as confirmed by the
2007 Inland Consent Decree, ceded to various American Indian
tribess.
You know how this is going to turn out, you've seen the movie.

Essay
Question:
Could industrial civilization reboot without fossil fuels? No. It was a one-per-customer thing.

Safety
Measured:
A federal judge has ruled that the General Motors that made all
those millions of cars with faulty ignition switches disappeared when
GM underwent bankruptcy and was resuscitated by a few tens of
billions of US taxpayer money. And this new, post-bailout,
post-bankruptcy GM does not owe the millions of people with defective
cars a penny. Nada. Is that all we get for the money?

Common
Denominator:
Does the 30% unemployment rate among young men throughout the Arab
countries explain the high levels of social unrest and
radicalization? You betcha.

What
Could Go Wrong?
Norway has given a mining operation permission to dump millions of
tons of mine tailings into a fjord that is part of the spawning
grounds for cod and salmon. Environmentalists,
if not the fish, are outraged.

Saturday, April 18, 2015

Free
Money Forever:According to the
government, the cost of living has decreased 0.1% y/y and not
seasonally adjusted. Don't see where the inflation is going to come
from that would require the Fed to raise interest rates. Looks like
more QE will be needed, so party on.

Future,
Tense: During
the fifty years of the original Cold War, both sides knew the rules
and pretty much stuck to them. But today, with Cold War Two between
Russia and the US and its European dependencies, there are no rules.
Both sides are making it up as they go along, pushing towards a
less-than-proxy war in Ukraine. That's why sending
a brigade from the173rd Airborne to Ukraine right now is not a
Good Idea. Delegation:
The head of ISIS in Pakistan was killed when a bomb he was planting
exploded. He missed the part in leadership school about delegation.

Tail
Wagging:
California lawmakers have given in to a handful of vocal
anti-vaccination idiots who think their opinion trumps science and
that their rights include endangering the health of their neighbors'
young children. Vaccinations will remain optional, despite the
object lesson the state lived through this winter.
California remains one
of 20 states that allow ignorant
minorities to put the majority at risk. Seconded:
A one-year-old child was shot in the head
during a road rage incident in Washington, where the irate driver was
exercising his NRA-given right to protect himself by
shooting the innocent at random. Another
Place Not To Live:
Arizona's Republican Governor has signed a bill that requires doctors
to tell patients seeking an abortion that drug-induced abortions can
be reversed, even thoough they cannot and never have been. The bill
also bars women from obtaining any health insurance that would cover
the cost of an abortion. Odds:
For every 1,000
citizens killed by police, only one officer
involved in these murders is convicted of wrongdoing of any sort.

Our
Hero: A lawyer
representing football star and accused rapist Jameis Winston –
likely to be the number one pick in the pro football draft – says
that the lawsuit brought by his victim is just a “stunt”. He
seems fully qualified.

Self-Hoisting
Petard:
Tennessee has never taken it upon itself to adjudge the validity of
any group seeking to organize a church in the state, for fear of
treading on the rights of Christians no matter how loopy. So they
had no choice but to issue 'church' status to a swingers' club in
Nashville, which will use its newly found faith to build a place of
worship in a neighborhood that rejected them when they were being
honest. Priorities:
After spending billions to paint itself green, BP has abandoned all
its green energy projects to concentrate on profits today and to hell
with your children's future.

Back
Issues: At the
end of March the US embassy in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstanreceived
150 tons of “diplomatic mail” in 12 separate
containers, which were flown in from Abu Dhabi on
a Ukrainian cargo plane. The embassy had received an earlier large
shipment of
“diplomatic mail” via
US Air Force cargo aircraft
in November 2013. How much do pallet loads of $100 bills weigh?

Seasonal
Mirage: The
House has voted to repeal the estate tax, in order to save the family
farm. Never mind that in the last 30 years the Republicans have been
unable to find a single instance where a family farm was 'lost' to
estate taxes, nor the troublesome fact that the tax only applies to
about 0.2% of the very wealthiest Americans. It's a death tax and
has to be killed. Too bad Senate
Democrats appear to have enough votes to block it. But
it makes for good theater.

Friday, April 17, 2015

Best
Friends Forever:
A senior Pakistani judge has directed the police to formally
investigate certain 2009 drone strikes to see if various CIA
personnel should be charged with murder.

Progression:
A former chief of the IMF, Rodrigo Rato, has been arrested and
charged with money laundering, which is more acceptable than the
sexual crimes his successor Dominique Strauss-Khan fought on two
continents, and more in line with the charges of committing fraud of
over €400 million that the current managing director of the IMF,
Christine Lagarde has survived. In the banking world this sort
of thing is looked at as a credential.

Professional
Hazard: UN
Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has become linked to the Korean
political bribery scandal triggered by a suicide note left by Sung
Wan-jong which named several leading politicians as taking bribes. Rank
Privileges: In
the UK, the Director of Public Prosecutions says it “would not be
in the public interest” to charge Lord Janner of Brunstone with
over 20 individual counts of sex offenses involving minor boys,
because His Lordship got away with it for so long. Four separate
police investigations have gathered sufficient evidence to convict,
but Janner has been deemed “not fit” to stand trial. But he
seems fit enough to remain a Peer of the Realm, even though his
pedophilia appears to have been known since as early as 1991.
Derbyshire police had
credible evidence
against Janner earlier,
but were prevented from making an arrest “by more senior people”. And that's all of our
leaders I can take for now.

Our Motto

Keep fightin' for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don't you forget to have fun doin' it. Lord, let your laughter ring forth. Be outrageous, ridicule the fraidy-cats, rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce. And when you get through kickin' ass and celebratin' the sheer joy of a good fight, be sure to tell those who come after how much fun it was.